Preventing homelessness – lessons from the Nordic countries 6.5. 9.30 -14:00 CET time

Preventing people from coming homeless is crucial if we want to abolish homelessness. The training will present good practices in preventing homelessness ranging from preventing evictions to effective ways of conducting mobile support work and how to use data to prevent homelessness. Examples taken from different Nordic countries, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, provide an excellent chance to compare and learn from each other. The lecturers are all specialists in their own field.

The training is free and we welcome all people working in the field of homelessness or interested in the subject to take part .

Program

Presentations

Vilja Kamppila: Preventing evictions with housing advice

Reza Saleh Baars & Kim Jonsson: Decreasing evictions in Sweden

Eeva Aziz & Jussi Latva: Preventing homelessness in AIMO-project

Louise Pedersen & Taylor Grills: Using data to prevent homelessness

Presentators

Mirka Järvinen (she/her) works as a project coordinator in the Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland. She has work experience from different aspects of social work, most the experience focuses on housing advice and homelessness prevention. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and is currently working on her Master’s degree in Service design.

Reza Baars – She is head of unit Preventive operations at the Swedish Enforcement Authority. At the Preventive Operations they are responsible for the aim to prevent over-indebtness. They work to ensure that fewer children and adults become heavily indebted in the future as well as sharing and spreading knowledge and information so that more people can solve their financial problems at an early stage.

Kim Jonsson – she is a project manager at the unit of Preventive operations at the Swedish Enforcement Authority. Since 2022 she has been working with a special government assignment to encourage the landlords and the social services to collaborate locally in order to prevent evictions.

Jussi Latva works as a service coordinator in Blue Ribbon foundation’s AIMO-project. He has more than 20 years of work experience as a practical nurse in various social and health care jobs.

Eeva Harez Aziz works in Blue Ribbon foundation. She has worked for 4 years in the AIMO project and the last six months as a team leader. She holds a Bachelor of Health Care degree in Social Services (Bachelor of Social Services).

Louise Marie Pedersen (she/her) is a social anthropologist and the Director and founder of Hjemløsninger, a Danish NGO dedicated to assisting Danish municipalities in creating a reality where homelessness is always a rare, brief, and non-recurrent event, by using real-time data and improvement science. Since 2015, Louise Marie has been actively engaged with marginalized and vulnerable groups in society, providing both practical and strategic support. She is now fully committed to ending homelessness in Denmark. Her passion lies in identifying and implementing solutions to the barriers that prevent individuals experiencing homelessness from finding a place to call home.

Taylor Grills is a System Improvement Advisor for the International Portfolio at Community Solutions. She earned her MA in Sociology, and has been working in the homelessness field for 6 years. Taylor started as an Assertive Outreach worker in Canada & in Australia, and then moved into the role as a Community Impact Advisor to work with communities in Australia. Currently, Taylor coaches communities from across the globe by using the the Built for Zero methodology to help end homelessness. Taylor uses data, collaboration, continuous improvement, and her never ending optimism to make a difference.